


Hard To Forget

by Elderly_Worm



Series: DYKWEI Extras [2]
Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Aziraphale Needs a Hug (Good Omens), Gen, Genocide, He/Him Pronouns For Aziraphale (Good Omens), Heaven is Terrible (Good Omens), Heavy Angst, Minor Character Death, Minor Injuries, Murder, POV Aziraphale (Good Omens), Sad Ending, Sdom va'Amora | Sodom and Gomorrah (Abrahamic Religions), Self-Hatred, Sodom Was Not Destroyed Because Of Homophobia, They/Them Pronouns for Sandalphon (Good Omens), Threats of Rape/Non-Con, no happy ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-08
Updated: 2020-11-08
Packaged: 2021-03-09 07:02:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,064
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27347059
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Elderly_Worm/pseuds/Elderly_Worm
Summary: Aziraphale and Sandalphon visit their acquaintance, Lot, in Sodom, but Sandalphon has a plan they aren't telling Aziraphale.
Series: DYKWEI Extras [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1997071
Comments: 4
Kudos: 23





	Hard To Forget

**Author's Note:**

> This is quite dark, so mind the tags. It's a longer version of a scene from my [work-in-progress](https://archiveofourown.org/works/25798744/chapters/62664223), but stands alone. Inasmuch as there is any form of happy ending whatsoever, it will be in the longer story. The title is a quote from episode 2.

_2198 BC. Sodom, Jordan._

“I do wish you’d tell me what’s going on,” said Aziraphale, hurrying after Sandalphon on the road to Sodom.

“It’s a surprise,” said Sandalphon, who was walking a few paces ahead. “You’ll see.”

They’d been working together for a few years now, since Sandalphon arrived on Earth. At first, they stayed with Abram’s brother, Lot, and his family, while Sandalphon learned to speak Sumerian and Aziraphale got a better grasp of the local languages.* More recently, though, they had drifted off to perform various and sundry blessings and dole out guidance among the locals.

(* Babel had been terribly inconvenient for everyone, most of all Aziraphale. With a language barrier between any given human and the rest of Heaven, he’d been the sole representative of Her will on Earth for centuries. He was hopeful that Sandalphon’s arrival signalled a more coordinated effort to teach the rest of the Heavenly host Earthly languages, but wasn’t counting on it.)

That morning, Sandalphon had come back from a walk about town with the news that they had to go to Sodom. Since they were an Archangel, Aziraphale had to agree.

At the city gates, a human in masculine dress waved and seemed to be coming to greet them. 

“Who’s that up ahead?” Aziraphale called to Sandalphon. “Is it someone we know?”

“Lot,” Sandalphon said.

“Oh, lovely.”

They drew closer, and Lot greeted them with a bow as was customary in the city. “Welcome! What brings you here?”

“Work,” said Sandalphon. “We’re leaving early in the morning.”

“I see,” said Lot. “Well, it’s so good to see you again. Edith and the girls will be glad to hear you’re both well. I know! Stay at our house tonight, please. You can get up in the morning and go on your way. It would be no trouble.”

“We couldn’t possibly take advantage of your hospitality like that,” Aziraphale said quickly. Neither he nor Sandalphon needed sleep, after all. It seemed silly to take up space in Lot’s home. 

“We’ll walk in the streets,” said Sandalphon. 

Bother. They still didn’t seem to have a grasp of how humans worked. 

Aziraphale opened his mouth to try to remedy the situation, but the damage, it seemed, had been done.

“I insist,” Lot said, and gestured down the road. “It’s not far.”

Sandalphon opened their mouth to protest again, but Aziraphale beat them to it. “Thank you ever so much.”

They followed Lot through the streets of Sodom. In the city centre, a market seemed to be quieting down. Lot turned as they passed a miller’s stall. “Would you mind if I bought some flour? I told Edith I would bring it home with me.”

“Not at all,” said Aziraphale.

Sandalphon wandered away in the other direction. Aziraphale had learned some time ago not to follow them. 

Lot took his time to select flour, so Aziraphale went the other way to peruse the market. A few stalls down from the miller, a young man seemed to be selling cheese and butter. 

“Is this goats’ cheese?” Aziraphale asked, doing his best to mimic the accents of the local tongue.

“The finest,” the vendor said. “Where are you from, then?”

Aziraphale picked up a jar of butter, apparently infused with herbs. “Everywhere, really.”

“Mysterious. Lots of handsome men there? Or is it just you?”

Aziraphale coughed. “Er, I couldn’t possibly say.” He looked back at the vendor, who was watching him with a flirtatious smile and raised eyebrow. Oh, dear. He set the butter on the counter. “How much is this?”

“For a man with a pretty face like yours, it’s on the house.”

“Ah. Thank you. I’m afraid I’ll have to speak with my… friend…” He’d dealt with advances from humans before, and quickly learned to simply avoid them. He turned and walked away, leaving the butter behind. 

When Aziraphale reached Lot, he was just paying the vendor. Sandalphon stood nearby. 

“Who’d you talk to?” Lot asked in Sumerian.

“Just a cheesemonger. Do you have everything?”

***

Aziraphale glanced from where Sandalphon stood on the other side of the room to his own, still mostly full plate, and risked a bite of bread. He wasn’t quite prepared for Heaven to know he’d started eating, but Lot’s wife Edith’s cooking was too good to pass up entirely. 

“It’s so good to see you again,” Lot’s oldest daughter, Paltith said. “And Sandalphon, though I don’t think they like us.”

“Nonsense,” said Aziraphale. “They’re really quite loving.” 

Paltith looked unconvinced, but had the grace not to say anything. 

Sandalphon turned to face the window, and Aziraphale managed a few more bites. It was absolutely delightful, the pairing of spice, vegetables, and lentils just so.

“It’s happening,” said Sandalphon from the other side of the room.

Aziraphale turned to look at them, frowning. “What’s happening?”

Now that he thought about it, he could hear the chatter of a crowd. Which was odd—they weren’t exactly in the city centre.

Edith came out of the kitchen, where she and Lot were doing the washing up. “Can I take your dishes?”

Paltith and Lot’s younger daughter passed their own over, and Aziraphale allowed his to be taken as well, though he hadn’t even got close to finishing it. 

“What’s that noise?” Edith asked.

“I’m not sure.” Aziraphale dabbed at the corners of his mouth, then stood and went to the window. 

Outside, a group of perhaps half a dozen men stood. One of them was the vendor from the cheese stand. When he spotted Aziraphale, he waved, and walked toward the door.

Sandalphon just watched them, which was strange, but no stranger than Sandalphon always was.

Aziraphale turned into the house. “Lot?”

There came a knock at the door.

Lot popped out of the kitchen and crossed the room to open the door. “Hello?”

“It’s our understanding you have two good-looking men staying with you,” the cheese vendor said. “We were wondering if they wanted to come out and… have a bit of fun?”

“I’ll ask,” said Lot, then shut the door before turning to raise an eyebrow at Aziraphale. “Well?”

Aziraphale shook his head quickly. “No, thank you.”

“Sandalphon?” Lot asked.

“I don’t indulge the baser desires of the human body,” Sandalphon said without emotion.

Lot raised his eyebrows. “Right.” He opened the door. “Sorry, gents. They’re not interested.”

The gathering fell silent for a moment. With a glance out the window, Aziraphale noted that they seemed to have gained some new members.

“See, we think you’re wrong. Why don’t you let them come out here so we can get to know them a little better?” It wasn’t the vendor anymore—this person had a deeper voice, and was shouting.

Aziraphale swallowed. This was all terribly uncomfortable.

Lot shook his head and shut the door. “I think that’s a situation best ignored.”

“I should say so,” Aziraphale agreed.

They retired to one of the back rooms, where they lit lamps and he caught up with Lot and Edith while Paltith put the younger daughter to bed. Sandalphon brooded in the corner. 

After a few hours, Edith frowned and raised a finger. “Hush, everyone. Can you hear that?”

The room went silent.

A shiver ran down Aziraphale’s spine. He could hear the rumble of chattering humans outside.

Lot got to his feet. “They didn’t go away.”

They returned to the front room. Indeed, the crowd had only grown. Now there were perhaps a hundred or more men outside, of all ages, shouting at the house. Most of them appeared drunk. 

“Goodness,” said Aziraphale. “Do you think we ought to bolt the door?”

“We can do better than that.” 

He turned to see Edith dragging a large sack from the other room.

“Oh, let me help.”

She shook her head. “You’re our guests. Don’t trouble yourselves.”

Lot opened the other window and shouted at the men to leave. 

Someone tapped Aziraphale on the shoulder and he turned to see Sandalphon beckoning him into a side room. He followed them.

“What is it?” he asked.

“We must smite them down,” said Sandalphon. “Sodom is ridden with sin.”

Aziraphale glanced between the window and Sandalphon. His hands twisted his robe. “I really don’t—I mean, are you certain?”

“And have them get away with it?” Sandalphon looked confused. “You heard what they said. You don’t think that behaviour should be punished?”

“I do,” said Aziraphale with a shudder. “Of _course_ I do, but—well—the whole city?”

Sandalphon shrugged. “Does it seem likely this sort of evil is a fluke?”

“I mean—”

“This was coming, Aziraphale,” said Sandalphon. “The city accepts it. Do you see anyone stopping them?”

“To be fair, I doubt they feel safe—”

“No, they’re not. Just Lot.” Sandalphon smiled. “It’s the Divine Plan. Sodom must be destroyed.”

It just seemed a terrible thing, destroying the entire city because of a few bad eggs. They could smite the men, easily. Aziraphale didn’t have much of a problem with that. But the whole city? All those women and children and people who had nothing to do with it!

But She wanted it… Aziraphale swallowed, glancing out the window, where the men jeered and shouted obscene things at the house. “The Divine Plan,” Aziraphale repeated.

“Yes,” said Sandalphon.

He took a deep breath. She knew what She was doing. She loved all things. She wouldn’t do something like this without an excellent reason. And if it was Her will, it was his duty to follow through.

“Yes. All right.”

“Good,” said Sandalphon with a gold-toothed smile, then prodded Aziraphale back into the main room of Lot’s house.

Lot and Paltith were barricading the door with grim expressions while Edith comforted the younger girl in the corner. 

Lot set a large bag of what appeared to be grain down and turned to face the Angels. “I’m so sorry about this,” he said. “Despicable behaviour.”

Aziraphale shook his head. “You needn’t apologize. I’m just glad we’re not on the streets tonight.”

Sandalphon glowered at him for a moment, then turned to Lot. “We have… an announcement.”

“What?” Paltith looked between them. “Are you getting married? Because if so, congratulations.”

Aziraphale swallowed and shook his head quickly. “No, dear. Absolutely not. Erm.”

Sandalphon scowled at him again, then looked at Lot’s family and brought out their wings. “We’re Angels,” they said flatly.

Oh, drat, that was part of it, wasn’t it? He brought out his own wings as well, and mustered up as much enthusiasm as he could. “Angels!” He spread his hands for emphasis.

Lot looked between them. “Oh. Um. That’s… a lot.”

“Yes,” said Sandalphon. “We’re destroying Sodom.”

“What?” Lot’s wife, Edith jumped to her feet. “What? Asir-fell, tell me he’s joking.”

“I’m afraid—I’m afraid I can’t,” said Aziraphale, gazing at the floor. “I’m terribly sorry.”

“Mummy?” The younger girl tugged Edith’s hand. “Mummy, what’s Sanfon saying?”

Sandalphon snapped their fingers, vanishing the roof of the house. “Come, Principality,” they said, then jumped into the air and flew out of sight.

Aziraphale watched them fly away, then let his gaze drift down to the family standing in front of him, their expressions stricken. 

“Asir-fell?” Edith asked. “Please, tell me he doesn’t mean the whole city?”

Surely it wouldn’t be a problem to save some of them. Lot was a good man. He’d just proven it. They didn’t deserve to die. Certainly not the little one.

“Not the whole city, no,” he said decisively, then snapped his fingers. 

They stood outside the city now. Past the humans, Aziraphale could see Sandalphon above Sodom, glowing with holy wrath and showering fire down. 

The little one started crying.

Aziraphale swallowed. “Now, then. Listen up. Er. You all have to run. Very far. And—no, don’t look back,” he said, waving a hand. 

Paltith looked back to him, frowning. “Why not?”

“It’s rather—” he cleared his throat. “Rather terrible. Not something you’d like to remember, I should think.”

She looked down, face crumpling.

Divine Plan. It was all part of the Plan. 

He took a deep breath. “I’m not sure how far the, er… damage will extend. The mountain should be safe enough.”

“What about Zoar?” Lot asked. “They haven’t done anything wrong.”

“Oh. Quite right.” Aziraphale looked down. “Now, if you’ll excuse me—”

Sandalphon appeared next to him, glowing with holy fire. “Aziraphale, you’re missing it.”

“I was just helping the family,” said Aziraphale. “They did save us, after all. It didn’t seem right to let them perish with the rest of the city.”

Sandalphon shrugged. “If you insist.”

A rumbling, crashing noise rolled through the plain. 

Edith glanced back, and gasped, hands clapping over her mouth. 

The tallest building in Sodom collapsed, the peak tumbling into the surrounding buildings. Then it was engulfed in flames.

Edith looked back at him, tears in her eyes. “Asir-fell,” she said, voice breaking.

“I did say not to look back,” he said, though it sounded weak.

“How _could_ you?” She let go of the smallest one’s hand and began crossing the field toward him. 

Aziraphale didn’t move. She had every right to be angry.

“He told you not to look back,” said Sandalphon, and snapped his fingers.

She froze, then in a flash of holy light, a pillar of white crystal stood in her place.

Lot sobbed. “Edith!”

Aziraphale turned on Sandalphon. “That was completely unwarranted. Turn her back right this instant!”

“It’s the Divine Plan,” said Sandalphon. “And I am an Archangel.”

“But—”

“But what, Principality?” Sandalphon smiled. “You finish up Sodom. I’ll do Gomorrah.” He vanished.

“Gomorrah? You didn’t say anything about—”

Across the plain, orange light lit the sky above Gomorrah.

“But…” Aziraphale shut his eyes. No. He had direct orders from an Archangel. 

He spread his wings and took to the air, flying toward Sodom. He ignored the humans below, and the tears rolling down his face, and the horrible, shameful, sickened feeling in his stomach. 

This was the Divine Plan, and She knew what She was doing. He would not question. 

When he arrived, the city was already nearly gone. Patches of fire glowed from the rooftops, humans crying out below. A few seemed to be escaping out the gate, though he couldn’t be sure from this high up. 

Now then. He had a job to do. Just had to—to burn Sodom. That was all. 

God decreed it. 

He took a deep breath and extended an arm toward the largest standing building, mustering power. 

A flame flickered from his palm, but petered out a few scant meters away.

What was wrong with him? He had orders from the Almighty. Those men—the people of Sodom—had wanted to do unspeakable things to him. He ought to be positively livid. 

He was angry, now that he thought about it. He closed his eyes, digging into all the spiky, hot emotions simmering inside him. His body made everything so much more vivid.

Aziraphale was angry. 

He opened his eyes, and found himself glowing with holy light, brighter even than the fires below. Sodom was burning, and it was—was _someone’s_ fault. Whether it was the fault of those awful men, or Sandalphon, or—or even his own fault, it didn’t matter. It just hurt. 

All that mattered right now was God’s orders, and the anger he felt. 

He extended his palm again, and this time it worked. 

Flames rained down on the city, eating up wood and charring bricks. It crackled, roared, each individual fire blossoming and merging with those around it, engulfing every alley and shack. One human after another screamed, then went silent. 

Aziraphale wasn’t breathing. He couldn’t. And not just because of the smoke, though that was there too. It spiralled up through the air, staining his clothes, coating the world in a haze and the smell of burning buildings and flesh. 

“Oh, God.”

A tear slipped from his nose and hissed on a flame that leapt up toward him. His wings faltered.

Something was terribly, terribly wrong. 

He spiralled down, down, on a steep diagonal to the edge of the city. A flame caught his heel, and he growled in pain, his wings flapping instinctively to keep him above the fire. 

Aziraphale tumbled out of the sky just outside the walls, his wings vanishing four meters from the ground. He collapsed on the ground, the impact knocking whatever air remained in his lungs out. He didn’t bother to inhale at first.

Then he did, and the air rushed in. It stank of death, and of Angelic power, and it hurt. He was sobbing now, great, shaking things that rippled up from somewhere deep in him, where a human would have a soul. He wasn’t angry anymore, just sad.

Overwhelmingly sad. More grief than he knew what to do with, though grief for what, he couldn’t say.

He cried for longer than a human would have been able, his body accommodating him. When he finally stilled, mist blanketed the plain, early morning sun shining through it. Sodom glowed on the other side, still smoldering. It would take weeks to go out. 

Aziraphale rolled onto his side. His heel smarted where he’d been burned, and his body was undoubtedly bruised from the impact when he fell out of the sky. 

He had to recover. He could still hear the sounds of destruction from Gomorrah, but they were growing less rapid. Perhaps Sandalphon had exhausted his righteous fervour. 

He had to recover. There was nothing wrong. Not really. He was just… just broken, somehow, from his time on Earth. Sandalphon had no issue with this assignment, so why was he this pathetic?

He pushed himself to sit, delicate dew on the grass chilling his fingers. It hurt. 

The sounds from Gomorrah had stopped. He had to get up. He took a deep breath and struggled to his feet, one limb at a time. Then he waved a hand at himself. Once, twice, again and again until the miracle took. 

His robe cleaned itself, the ash whisked off with a thought and dropped to the ground, a halo about his feet. 

The injuries, he left. They hurt. But somehow they seemed more real than anything else here. 

Great wings beat overhead, and Sandalphon landed before him. They were jovial, teeth glinting in the flames of Sodom. They clapped him on the shoulder, and Aziraphale gagged. They congratulated him. And, somehow, he smiled.


End file.
